Kasich campaigns, touts Cleveland getting GOP 2016 convention

Tuesday

Jul 8, 2014 at 12:01 AMJul 9, 2014 at 7:55 AM

TIPP CITY, Ohio - Two years and maybe two elections collided yesterday for Gov. John Kasich. As the GOP governor set off on his first full day of campaigning for re-election this fall, Cleveland was named the host of the 2016 Republican National Convention.

Joe Vardon, The Columbus Dispatch

TIPP CITY, Ohio — Two years and maybe two elections collided yesterday for Gov. John Kasich.

As the GOP governor set off on his first full day of campaigning for re-election this fall, Cleveland was named the host of the 2016 Republican National Convention.

Within minutes of the Cleveland announcement, Kasich was tying what is likely his message for re-election this year to the story he believes having the convention in Cleveland will allow him to tell the country.

By the end of the day, at his third and final campaign stop at a label factory in Tipp City, Kasich was asked again if he was running for president. After telling a campaign audience that he sought to return to the “private sector” after being governor, he told reporters: “I’m only focused on 2014 right now. My whole situation is based on that.”

But it was clear that the message he will have for his re-election this year is the same brand of Republicanism he says the state will put on display globally because of the convention coming to Cleveland.

“I’m proud of not just the jobs,” Kasich said to about 175 people at Repacorp, a sophisticated label manufacturer north of Dayton. “I’m proud of the fact that we’re not turning our back on the really tough situations: poverty, dropouts … (the) mentally ill. We’re not going to turn our back on them, and that’s the kind of thing that can be shown through the lens of the Republican National Convention.”

Yesterday was designed for Kasich to accept and tout the endorsement of the nation’s largest trade association for small businesses with stops in Hamilton, Dayton and Tipp City. But the rollout seemed to be hijacked by the news that broke during Kasich’s morning stop at a Hamilton factory in suburban Cincinnati about the RNC landing in Cleveland.

As the day wore on, Kasich spoke more about his policies that he believes point to a compassionate brand of politics, and less about those policies as they relate to a convention that’s two years away.

When he finished up at Repacorp, where he spoke about reducing recidivism rates for criminals, new welfare programs and his successful expansion of Ohio’s Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act, he remarked to reporters: “Did that sound like a political rally?”

Crowds were mostly quiet during the three stops in southwestern Ohio, a region that is the strongest of Republican strongholds in the state, where the average GOP gubernatorial candidate wins by 92,000 votes. A reason: Kasich’s oft-heard lines referring to “helping people in the shadows,” a not-always-subtle reference to Medicaid expansion, which was unpopular among many conservatives in the region.

“I definitely didn’t like that,” said Sean Leventen, owner of Johnston Fire Safety, who attended Kasich’s Hamilton event and said he would vote for the governor because of the income-tax cuts he’s signed. “Anything associated with Obamacare is bad. I think (Kasich) could be more conservative, more fiscally conservative.”

Daniel McElhatton, spokesman for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ed FitzGerald, said the 2014 election “is about two very different sets of priorities: (FitzGerald’s), which focus on supporting the middle class, and Kasich’s, which prioritize income-tax breaks for the wealthy.”

FitzGerald, who also serves as Cuyahoga County Executive, played a role in bringing the Republicans to Cleveland. Kasich declined to comment on FitzGerald’s role, but he did credit others for the convention, including Democratic Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson.

Kasich also said the Cleveland convention wasn’t “about me” but about the state’s success.

Hours earlier in Hamilton, he said: “Look, to be able to present a Republican party that’s strong economically but cares about people who live in the shadows, it’s such a message that the Republicans have not had. And we’re doing it.”